Game Reviews and More

One Timers – Donkey Kong, Booger Man

One Timers are quick hits. Their purpose are to serve those who don't like reading anything longer than two minutes.

DKC

Everyone knows that Donkey Kong Country is one of the greatest platformers in history. And most people have finished the game with no issues. I’m here at your mercy because I’ve used the Konami code of the DK universe, the BARRAL cheat. That’s right, I would highlight “erase game” in the save game menu and hit b-a-r-r-a-l on the controller for an easy 50 lives. If you want to try it out, just know that you have to hit the buttons at a frantic speed. Very fast.

Booger Man

No one can deny that farts are funny. Not as funny as sharts, but still funny. It doesn’t matter if you’re a woman, man or child. You, right now you, you reading this could be the most up-tight person on the planet: if I released a long squeaking toot that I was expecting to conseal, you would laugh. Or vomit. But mostly laugh. Boogers happen to be a distant second on the laugh charts. People like gross. This is the Booger Man review.

Imagine a game where Mega Man was a human who drank too much, looked like he smelled and wore a Cape. This is it. It would also be the worst Mega Man, because Booger Man has problems.

The art work and graphics are well done. The game just looks fun. As I proved earlier, the humour should appeal to everyone. Why isn’t this game celebrated? Because it’s not good. The level designs are as dull as our playable character. The stages are repetitive, and not in a stylistic, hip way. I enjoyed ten minutes of it, then I wanted to take a nap.

Booger Man can jump on the enemies heads, Mario style, but the projectiles are the attraction. The green slime that comes from our hero’s nose is the best part of the game. Of course the booger attacks, the burp power and fart specials are all given in limited supply. The ammo’s symbols—which we have to collect—are lame. The fart symbol should be the Arby’s logo; the snot a germ symbol; root beer for the burps.

Every great game has a feedback system. Booger Man is not a great game. There’s no overland map; there’s no sense of adventure and no RPG elements. Seems to be an easy fix.

I wanted to be able to recommend this one, but I can’t. Booger Man could have been an all-timer if not for those issues, and the absurd difficulty. Pick and flick away my friends.

Intellivision

The Intellivision’s 10 year run was full of hopes and crushed dreams. The console was made to directly compete with the Atari 2600. The battle was fierce in both which one wore wood panelling the best and performance. The marketers boasted that the console would see an expansion module along with a keyboard released for it, turning the toy into a powerful home computer. Powerful by 1981 standards. Many units were sold, many oldschool gamers were upset: the upgrades were never released.

The Intellivision does have it’s bragging rights. The controller had the first d-pad, which is something found on almost every controller since. The console is also quietly the first system with a 16-bit microprocessor. Sorry Turbografx you weren’t the first to hit the sweet 16.